


Distorted Portrait

by Ysavvryl



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Discussing Porn, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Treat, fic about art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 08:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20597978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/pseuds/Ysavvryl
Summary: There are some art subjects that are more difficult than others.  Alternatively, porn is discussed far too seriously when you don't find it sexy.





	Distorted Portrait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxjar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxjar/gifts).

Try again… purely geometrical forms then? There was a geometry to visual appeal, shapes that people associated with beauty. It was seen in architectural design, the ratios, lines, and balance. But in portraiture, the geometry of beauty was often hidden. Bodies had curves and lines, but not in a pure sense. A portrait of a being with purely straight lines and absolute geometry, that should be unsettling, correct? Not to the style of abstract art, but a perfectly shaped being might look unnatural.

On having the sketch done, Yusuke pondered whether it had the spirit he was searching for. It was technically correct, the winged body, winged halo, and assorted arms. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel right either. It was missing a certain something… a gravity to how serious and dangerous this being was. There was nothing that hinted at insanity, just a certain level of absurdity. Perhaps it was in the scale of things. As a small sketch, Yaldabaoth appeared more like a gaudy toy than a mad god. He closed his eyes and mentally arranged something on a large canvas. Pure geometry might be a good angle to go with, but perhaps the sheer scale needed to be conveyed as well.

A hand gripped his shoulder before he realized someone else was there. “I said I’m back,” Akira said.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Yusuke said. “Welcome back. How was your day?”

“Not too bad,” he said, sitting in a chair by him. “How about yours?”

He glanced over their apartment as most of the partition screens were pulled aside. His studio area took up much of the space, comparable to the sitting area near the kitchen. Nearby, Akira had a small computer desk that made up his home area, although he never complained about the size. “I did some cleaning this morning; there’s a pile of things on your desk there that should be sorted.”

“All right, I’ll get on that before cooking dinner,” he said.

Right, it would be his night for that. Then an idea came to him. “Actually, could I use your computer for some research? I have an idea for my next project, but I need some reference images first. My sketches aren’t working out.”

“Sure thing,” Akira said, glancing at his sketchbook. Then he frowned. “Isn’t that Yaldabaoth?”

“Yes, it is for the series on the Phantoms,” Yusuke explained, flipping back through his sketchbook. There were test drawings for their fellow thieves which he had already done paintings of. “The goal is to keep our legend alive. There are those who still remember those events. To do a painting, I want to make sure he comes across as disturbing and unnatural, not something to be glorified. I’m having a hard time with that given that he was golden and angelic in appearance.”

Akira nodded. “I see. You’re right; visually and without the right sense of scale, he wouldn’t seem as threatening as he was in person.”

“That’s why I want some references for disturbing imagery, since I haven’t sought out such things before,” he said.

“All right, but I might clear my search history afterward so weird stuff doesn’t pop up as recommendations,” he said, giving a chuckle.

“That’s fine, I shouldn’t need to see them more than once.” He took his notebook over to the computer in case he wanted to make some notes or sketches.

Akira followed over to check on the things he had to sort through. “Then if you’re starting a new one, did you finish the one of yourself? You painted all the others.”

“Well…” he sighed, and shook his head, feeling nervous. It was like school deadlines all over again, the ones for assignments that didn’t catch his imagination and the teacher didn’t say much but was clearly disappointed with the half-hearted project turned in.

“What’s the matter with it?” he asked, bringing the chair he’d been using to the other side of the small desk.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out myself, what’s the matter,” Yusuke said, bringing up an artist forum. He knew there was an area where users discussed art they found disturbing, although he hadn’t browsed around there himself. “But I have that video calling card we made with our silhouettes, right? People saw that, yet we still don’t want to betray our identities. You’re an exception because the police know you were the leader and the video did show you more clearly. For everyone else, I’ve made alterations so that their identities cannot be matched to the paintings.”

“Distorted portraits,” Akira said. “Is that it? You’re having trouble coming up with a distorted self-portrait?”

“Yes, that sounds right,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Self-portraits are a mainstay of art; I’ve done them before, yes. I could distort the portraits of the others because I want to protect them. But when it comes to myself as Fox, that’s unnerving because it’s me, but it’s not me.” He paused a moment, looking at the art forum page. “Although that’s not the sort of unnerving I want with Yaldabaoth. He’s more of a…” he snapped his fingers trying to find the words, “…a knotted up mass of ideas that makes little sense to us humans even though he is a pure form of an ideal we have. And there was how he broadly dismissed us as worthy, putting him a step further from human understanding to those who dared to listen critically. Perhaps a collage would be better in trying to relate how off he was.”

“Like maybe something that warps the canvas itself?” he suggested. “I saw something like that before.”

“That would take some experimentation, but it might work,” Yusuke said, getting some ideas that he started sketching. Maybe a layered canvas with pieces cut out and pasted on elsewhere? So the painting would look flat at first glance, but then wasn’t. And then what would appear to be broad strokes, like his golden wings, would have pictures in the shadows of the sloth he both granted and despised, along with the torments forced upon others so they also accepted sloth, which would lead to them accepting their wholescale destruction. Yaldabaoth had attacked them with sin for their sins; the holy appearance was mere appearance. But how to translate that to art, which was mostly visual in nature…

* * *

While Yusuke was caught up in his thinking, Akira finished his sorting, got Yusuke a glass of juice, and finished up making dinner. He’d understood this without being told, that working on art often took Yusuke completely out of what went on around him. it was a sign that things were going well. In the meantime, Akira worked around him and made sure he had things to eat or drink in easy reach. It did worry him when he had to be out and Yusuke was here at work alone. He’d not seriously overworked himself yet, but Akira had come back from work on occasion to find Yusuke feeling faint from not drinking enough. Akira tried to note when he seemed caught up in something and would text him if he had to be away for several hours, just to check up on him.

Yusuke acted particular about food, although in truth he tended to eat anything he was offered. In living with him, Akira had learned more about traditional Japanese cuisine along with where to find good ingredients in the city. Today, he’d found some good tomatoes, not traditional but he knew how to make lots of recipes now. He put together a tomato and spinach salad along with rice balls made with things that were in their fridge. Yusuke was still checking on his art forum and making sketches when he was done, so Akira split up the meal and brought the dishes over to his desk.

This time, he noticed right away. “That smells good,” he said, taking his salad bowl. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said, setting the plate with rice balls in an empty spot. Then he spotted what he’d been looking at: some kind of yaoi drawing that definitely looked off. But it seemed like a lack of skill more than something intentional. “Is that supposed to be kinky?”

“I don’t know,” he said, taking a rice ball to eat despite what he was doing. “It looks more painful than anything; the human body does not work that way.”

Mentally thinking of this like it was an odd challenge, Akira sat down in the other chair to eat his salad. “Right, but that doesn’t seem like what you’re after.”

“No, it’s not,” Yusuke said, closing that picture. Behind that, there was another failure of porn with a bizarre almost shapeless monster with very phallic tentacles with a woman whose expression seemed at odds with the situation. “See, this could work as a terrifying depiction of sexual abuse if more care was taken with it. The balance of light and shadow could be shifted more to add to the symbolic dominance of the monster. And change the portrayal of the woman because this seems like something that could be used to glorify rape. If you wanted to pass this off as something consensual, the factor of dominance should be taken out by putting less emphasis on the tentacle monster.”

“I hope you’re not going to get into tentacle porn from this,” Akira said.

He shook his head and thankfully closed the picture. “No, it’s as unattractive as the other one. There’s a good portion of these that are meant to titillate, although it varies on if they were meant to be disturbing or not. That’s base attraction aiming for the lowest common denominator, nothing like what I’m after.”

“Well there are people who are more into that,” he said. “Different forms of art speak to different people.”

“I suppose as long as they don’t get carried away with it,” Yusuke said, opening another picture. It was quickly closed; he went through several more before pausing on one. “Hmm…”

Although he didn’t have the artistic eye that Yusuke did, Akira saw what made him pause on that one. The quality of the work made it more likely that any disturbing aspect was intentional. It was of a classroom where various students were chatting, napping, and not paying any heed to studies. Just off center, though, there was a desk covered in black scribbles and stabbed with knives. The student there was grinning like their head could split open with their eyes as blurred shadows. One of the knives pierced through a paper cutout of a person, one that seemed to bleed.

“Is this supposed to be something about school bullying?” Akira asked.

“Hmm, what makes you think so?” Yusuke asked, glancing at him.

He gestured with a fork to the other students of the drawing. “None of them are looking at the student at this desk even though they clearly stick out. And I’ve seen bullying others through writing nasty things on their desk.”

“That makes sense,” Yusuke said, looking at the drawing again. “Did that happen to you?”

“No, but I got ignored because other students were intimidated by the rumors about me,” he said. “So that stood out to me.”

“I was thinking this was about darker feelings that get hidden, like a person’s Shadow,” he said, pointing to the bullied student’s face. “Most people repress violent feelings, and it could be a response to bullying, or having others ignore that something is wrong with you. But also,” he then indicated the desk, “this section of the drawing stands out because it doesn’t fit in with the surroundings. The shapes have sharper lines and more exaggeration, as compared to the softer qualities of the more normal setting. Then, that’s a technique for being intentionally disturbing, I think. A mismatch to the setting, or things that would be inappropriate for normal circumstances. Yaldabaoth doesn’t seem disturbing on his own, but perhaps a disconcerting setting or make sure his depiction is somehow inappropriate or abnormal… but what to use for a disconcerting setting?”

“The whole bone structure and bloody rain that made up our path to him was disconcerting,” Akira said, taking a couple of rice balls for himself before Yusuke unwittingly took them all. “Although, I found the central prison where we found him as the Holy Grail to be just as disturbing.”

“That prison?” Yusuke asked, looking thoughtful.

“Although that might be because of the Velvet Room too,” he said.

“That was a strange prison too, but it wasn’t disturbing like the Mementos prison.”

Akira shook his head. “That’s because when you were there, we opened up the doors and escaped. But I’m sure I told you guys a while ago, I had to go there to manage what I did with multiple Persona. I was locked in one of those cells and sometimes was called in to speak with the residents there. While I could leave, being confined in there was terrible. I could get glimpses of other cells, but had no idea if anyone or anything was in them. There’d be noises out of sight, which might’ve been fabricated to heighten my discomfort, or maybe there was something else in there with us. And then the walls made sure that all I could see was the central room where the residents were. The Mementos prison was more massive then that, but I don’t see how the people there were comfortable. They could never hide from the one in the center, the Holy Grail which was always watching them and always draining energy from them.”

“That does sound terrible,” Yusuke said. “I wonder…” He set down his fork to take up his pencil again and sketch. But this time, he paused, then closed the picture on the screen. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up things that personally disturbed you.”

“It’s all right, I’ve escaped all that,” he said, smiling to reassure him that it was fine. “If I feel trapped these days, I remember that I don’t have to feel that way about anything and find some way to fix whatever doesn’t feel right. Besides,” he reached over to toy with Yusuke’s hair, “I know I can always come to your side if I feel alone for any reason.”

Smiling and clasping his hand near his face, he said, “Of course. Were you feeling like that?”

“A bit, but not anymore,” Akira said, touching his face now that he was leaning in more. “What about you? Do you need to distract yourself with a really disturbing subject to avoid acknowledging your own part in our legend?”

He closed his eyes and leaned into their hands. “Probably not,” he admitted. “I know there’s good reason behind making these pictures like this; we don’t want to raise another fuss that could get us all in trouble when everyone’s moved on. But the dishonesty keeps nagging at me this whole time and gets sharper when I try focusing on myself.”

“It’s for a legend,” he reminded him. “Legends may have their roots in some truth, but they become more than that. It needs to be someone recognizable as Fox, not as Yusuke.”

“Hmm, that line of thought might help.” For the moment, he seemed more focused on keeping hold of him rather than eating or thinking about his sketches. If he was in that kind of mood, it might be a good evening to stay here at home with him.

Akira shifted his grip, which let him slip a little out of Yusuke’s grasp to brush a finger across his cheek. “You know, if you can distance yourself a bit to do this portrait of Fox as a separate legend, you could then make a more honest portrait of the two of us to reward yourself for getting past that challenge.”

Smiling warmly, he looked over at him and seriously asked, “How honest would you want that portrait?”

“If it’s going to be anything honestly intimate and racy, I’d rather it be kept between us,” he said.

“Of course, I’ll be sure to check with you first.”

Then he nudged his hand a bit. “Well let’s finish dinner and we can talk about what we want to do then,” Akira said.

“All right,” he said, letting go at the reminder of food.

The talk worked out since a couple of weeks later, he had a finished painting of Fox that wasn’t recognizably Yusuke.


End file.
